some of jim huden's former band mates still make a living playing music, though not to the kind of crowds the exhibitionists used to draw. ♪ ♪ >> we're the exhibitionists. thank you. long story. we'll talk about it later. >> as for jean huden, the woman who protected the killer out of love even as she was being treated so badly and who then finally stood up for herself and exposed him, the prosecutions of jim huden and peggy thomas represent the end of something sad and maybe the start of something better. >> i'm tired of pay for example what they did. so hopefully i'll be able to move on now and, you know, i can pick up the pieces, you know, stay with bill and kind of try to have a normal life again. ♪ that's all for this edition

of "dateline" friday. i'm lester holt. join us for dateline at 7:00, 6:00 central. up next "rock center" with brian williams. criminal evidence abandoned in a warehouse and how one prosecutor's outrage unraveled a mystery and changed everything. "rock center" starts right now . ladies and gentlemen, this is the national broadcasting company. >> tonight on "rock center." we were listing so bad my entire room flooded. you never knew what could happen. >> i thought we could die.

>> it was such a disgrace. >> kate snow investigates what's being called an outrageous failure of justice that hurt so many women it took a hero to expose. >> you've been called the toughest woman in detroit. >> i've been called a lot of things. that's just one of them. >> also tonight, it's not just the huge prize money. or the party, party vibe or even the celebrity host. >> you might be a red neck. >> harry smith checks out the game show by daring to ask how much do you know about the bible? >> resurrection is correct. >> i didn't want to be in a line in hell going this is the game show, right? it was the game show. >> that and more as "rock center" gets under way. good evening.

you've seen the commercials. they air often on this network and others, what the cruise lines are selling all of us is the chance to get away. get out on the water, relax, unwind, have fun, do something different. well, that something different sure happened to the passengers onboard the carnival triumph cruise ship. as we've seen, starting with the fire, the power failure, the air-conditioning went out, bathrooms failed, food ran out, misery and bedlam broke out and now the ship is in port. tonight, we're finding out more, including the more serious health situations that developed onboard. dr. nancy snyderman is there for us tonight in mobile, alabama. >> this family reunion in a parking lot in galveston, texas, was not the kind of reunion the alderman and colon family had planned when they booked a cruise on the carnival triumph. their trip was supposed to be a

birthday party and family reunion at sea planned for more than a year and including 31 relatives. their joy in being together captured in this portrait taken aboard the ship. this trip of a lifetime was ruined when at 5:30 last southbound the ship's p.a. system sounded alarms says mercedes perez de colon. >> for me that was the most serious part. oh, my gosh, they're here for my birthday and something's going to happen and i brought them all onboard. >> the family was scattered all over the ship, 14 stories high. their thoughts instantly turned to one member, rachel aldaret, 54 years old and suffering can kidney disease. she needed regular dialysis to stay alive and was due for a treatment on tuesday. >> all they could tell us is we're waiting. we're waiting. we don't know how long this is going to be. so the crew engineered a harrowing transfer off the ship. there was another woman also evacuated as seen in these

images captured by another passenger arc board the ship. a coast guard boat pulled up alongside the massive and powerless ship and the vessels bobbed up and down in choppy waters and this is how rachel was taken off, too. >> i didn't know that they were just going to open the door and tie a rope with a -- like a ladder and for me to climb into that small boat. when i started walking over there i looked at the water and i'm, like, oh, no and the boat was going like this and i'm, like, oh, no, you're going to drop me. your going to drop me. i don't know how to swim and this and that. you're going to drop me. >> rachel was taken to mexico to receive her treatment and then flown back home to austin, texas. >> chaos onboard this ship began when a fire erupted in the engine room four days into the cruise. >> fire. >> this scene showed that is supposed to be the worst thing that could happen at sea.

>> sparks billowing from the carnival triumph and filtering down the cabins of the ship. >> we could have died. there was smoke coming down. >> christy stephens and her friends lisa barcelona and karen hill are members of a dinner club from houston who decided to take a cruise together. >> do you guys think you got on a safe ship? >> absolutely not. >> no. >> no. >> the second monday we were listing so bad my entire room flooded. so -- >> from what? >> the toilet, the shower, everything. my feet were -- the floor was squishy. >> were you worry withed at all as women traveling by yourselves that at any time you weren't safe? >> that's why we were locked away. >> just kind of survival mode. you've found a place for us that was contain and it had a back wall and a door. you never knew what could happen. >> so many doors were broken -- i mean, it wasn't safe as far as their protocol, you know.

everybody fend for themselves as far as food. let floor 1 and 2 go between len and 11:30. it was may chaos and everyone running and hoarding the food. the people in the back, we had soaked submarine sandwiches. it was bread and tomato. >> they became known onboard as the library ladies. >> i won't be going on another cruise. >> done? >> done. yeah. >> in orth corner of the massive ship there was a group of women who called themselves the mama bears. >> caroline martindale, carolina padilla and ashley lam were there for ashley riggs' bachelorette party. >> as the bride-to-be was this your idea of an extravaganza. >> after discussing with all my friends it would be really easy for all of us to come together and what an easy way to have a bachelorette party. >> and for the first day and a half it was good. >> a lot of fun. a lot of fun. >> really fun. >> jamie, when did things start to not be fun?

>> when we woke up to the smell of smoke. i guess it was sunday night. a pauline and i had crashed a little bit early. she said do you smell smoke? i do, but go back to sleep and ashley had passed out in her room and we were spread out in three different rooms and then the alarms and then the p.a. system and don't panic, there's a fire. how do you say that in the same sentence on a boat. >> did you ask is there a ship coming? was the coast guard coming? >> you had to stand in line for two and a half hours to get food. i was standing in line and there was a guy there that was a mechanic on the boat, and i asked him, i said when you all saw the fire why didn't you all immediately call for help and he told us what, jamie? that they thought they could fix it. >> they thought they could fix it. >> we went for hours -- ten hours, before we even knew.

they kept saying the engine -- we have to cool the engine before we can see the situation. so we had no clue what was going on. >> and then you heard that this ship has had problems before. >> absolutely. >> just last month the carnival triumph had a mechanical problem that delayed a cruise to mexico. >> and it needs to be changed. >> and now plaintiff's lawyers like mississippi's john eaves are beginning to weigh in. >> there have been three fires aboard ships from this company since 2010. today eaves was part of a group of lawyers to file the first lawsuit against carnival cruise lines. carnival declined to respond, telling nbc news, quote, we have not yet seen the suit and are not in a position to comment. >> but ceo jerry cahill did apologize profusely to the passengers and the public. >> i know the conditions onboard were very poor. i know it was very difficult, and i want to apologize again for subjects our guests to that.

>> eaves has a history with carnival, having represented over 100 passengers aboard the doomed costa concordia which sank off the coast of italy last year claiming 32 lives. it, too, was owned by carnival. as part of that lawsuit, a judge authorized the seizure of another of carnival's massive ships. >> we are here to execute a court order. >> that seized vessel was none other than the carnival triumph. >> and you impounded it because you believed it wasn't safe? >> that's correct. >> you seized the ship, held it. they paid $10 million to get it back to sea. do you think anyone who boarded the triumph knew that this ship was out on bail? >> i don't think so. >> you have described the cruise ship industry as the wild west. why? >> because they have operated without regulation, without oversight in a legal system that

allows them to avoid responsibility. >> carnival and the other cruise companies set up these contracts, passenger tickets and most passengers never read them, but they send these tickets and they try to escape every possible responsibility and make the passenger give up every possible right that they have. >> i have now spoken to doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, educated people, i've asked every single one, did you read the document? nobody did. >> it's no surprise. >> industry representative bud dhar says there are standards in place to protect passengers' rights. >> this is already a very heavily regulated industry. it's regulated at both international levels and national levels and the enforcement occurs in multiple layers. >> carnival has offered pa passengers a free refund, vouchers for a free cruise and $500. some pass everyoningers have said that's not enough, but no matter how they feel about the

company, almost all of them have praised the actions of the crew members during their ordeal. >> great. they were great. you couldn't have asked for anybody to have been any better to us. they did everything they could possibly do. >> nancy snyderman reporting from mobile, alabama, for us. thanks. next up, why was key forensic evidence left to gather dust on a shelf that could have helped to apprehend criminals that attacked women. kate snow spoke to a woman who feared for more than a decade who feared her attacker would strike again. >> there were times that i would be afraid. a lot of times i would have people come over and spend the night. hey, can can you come and spend the night. >> you didn't want to be alone? >> no. >> no. hey! hey honey! hey alan. uh, hey.... i'm bob, we talked at the tax store. i did your taxes. i thou??t you were a tax expert? today, i'm a master plumber. major tax stores advertise for preparers with "no tax experience necessary."

at turbotax, you only get answers from cpas, eas or tax attorneys - all real tax experts. ...than h&r block stores and all other major tax stores combined. how dowe get doing...olished room and make it shine? ...with a store full of ways to get it done. we can all throw on our work clothes... ...and throw out any doubt. because right now's the time to take those rooms from... ..."think i can do this?" to... ..."let me show you what i just did." more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. outsmart your budget with this shaker vanity, a special buy at just $199.

the battle of bataan, 1942. [ all ] fort benning, georgia, in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve the military, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto-insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve. otherworldly things. but there are some things i've never seen before. this ge jet engine can understand 5,000 data samples per second. which is good for business. because planes use less fuel, spend less time on the ground and more time in the air.

suddenly, faraway places don't seem so...far away. ♪ [ female announcer ] almost nothing can dampen a baby's mood, when he wakes up dry in pampers. unlike other diapers, pampers has 3 absorbent layers, for up to 12 hours of protection overnight, and more beautiful mornings. ♪ pampers. peaceful nights. playful days.

>> welcome back. in almost all crimes the fundamental question is who did it and why. tonight we have a trouble troubling investigation that turns that question on its head to ask instead why wasn't something done? at issue here is evidence, women courageously gave to police after brutal, life-changing attacks on them.

what happened next has brought a lot of attention to one american city's police department and it has convinced one law enforcement official to confront some of the people she relies on most. kate snow has our report. >> you've been called the toughest woman in detroit. >> well, i've been called a lot of things. that's just one of them. >> even in a hard-hit town full of tough women, kym worthy stands out. she's the wayne county prosecutor, the chief law enforcement officer in the detroit area. she's also a single mother raising three daughters on her own. >> i guess so. >> constantly juggling home life and work. >> i wanted to be a lawyer. i fell into the job of being a prosecutor the moment i started doing this work i knew it was work for me. >> never one to shy away from the toughest cases, worthy prosecuted detroit's former mayor kwame kill patrick. >> we are not going ignore true justice at any time. >> she's the one person in

detroit you really don't want to get angry and that's exactly what happened back in august 2009 all because of a discovery that centered on this warehouse downtown. >> paint a picture for me. what was it like on the third floor. >> >> it was very musty smelling, very warm. dusty, dirty. >> at the time this building was the det wrote police department's overflow storage facility from evidence from investigations, but the system for processing evidence was in disarray, so one of worthy's prosecutors rob spada was called in to help police catalog and sort what they had. what they had was a jumbled mess. >> they had evidence from one case sitting next to evidence from another case. >> he stumbled upon rows of boxes stacked on top of each other. >> i saw numerous racks with cardboard boxes and they told me at that point those were rape kits. i immediately asked representatives were they tested

rape kits and untested rape kits. at that point they said we don't know. >> rape kits. they're what hospitals use to collect dna from a victim in the hopes that police can test it and identify a rapist. dna is often the most important evidence used to convict. spada says there were thousands of boxes each containing about five kits. >> is this about the size -- >> exact side. >> this is about the size of the boxes you saw on the shelves. >> yes. >> so you saw dozens and dozens of these in a row? >> yes. >> he estimated there were more than 10,000 rape kits. >> it sounds so disrespectful of what it is. >> exactly. that's why i immediately came back to my office and alerted the prosecutor. >> i said you have got to be kidding me. what we were potentially looking at team over 10,000 cases, over women had reported and whose lives and what happened to them

were sitting on on a shelf and i was stunned and not too much stuns me. i went home that night and i said that can't possibly true, and i put in 10,000 rape kits on google and i was further shocked to find this was a national problem and not just a detroit problem. >> you found articles in other cities? >> everywhere. >> where? >> l.a., new york, chicago, in the fbi, all over this country. texas. all over this country. >> did you scream from the rooftops? >> i contacted the police chief. >> the police chief at the time promised an internal review, but she didn't think that was enough. so she found volunteers on her staff to start sifting through the rape kits all 11,303 of them trying to match each one with a victim using old handwritten police log books. >> we were literally blowing off dust and dirt off of these books so we can open them up and see if we could find any information in these books that would match the rape kit. my prosecutors that are

overworked, underpaid and have too much to do, volunteers on their own time because we were all concerned about this issue. >> some kits were 20 years old. others were as recent at 2008. thousands of potential victims of brutal crimes and in a way, there might not have been anyone better suited to help them. >> you can empathize with these women. >> yes. >> yes, i was a sexual assault victim when i was in law school and i didn't even report my sexual assault. and so it's not only the fact that i was a sexual assault victim which i really don't think, had a lot to do with my passion now, but it's a part of who i am certainly and this may sound strange, but what happened to me in law school happened for a reason and led me to what i am doing now. i always felt that way. >> what she's doing now is spearheading the tests to dna in the rape kits in the hopes that some women may finally see justice. women like audrey polk. >> you, your whole life you grew up in detroit, right?

>> yeah. >> who she was and who she's become are forever framed by the events of february 17, 1997. >> that was the night when someone came into our house and, um, i was violated. >> were you asleep? >> yes. >> and someone you didn't know. >> i didn't know. right. what woke me up was his weight on top of me. >> where were your kids? >> lying right next to me. >> in the same bed? >> yes. yes. >> after her assault polk immediately went to a hospital and was examined to collect evidence for a rape kit. it took hours. >> that takes a lot of courage. >> yeah. but i had to do it. >> why? >> i had no choice. that was the only way i could

ever have a way of, you know, getting this person off the street. >> so you do all that. do you call them the next day and say, okay, have you found him yet? >> actually, i called several times, and i never really got a solid answer. >> what would they say? >> just, well, we're investigating or just something to just tell me to, you know, hold me over for a little more time. >> eventually audrey just stopped calling, but 14 years later her life would be up ended again. this time with a knock at her door. >> i answered the door. >> and who is standing there? >> i heard the wayne county prosecutor's office and i opened the door and said ma'am, i've never done anything wrong in my life. >> and she goes. no, we know who raped you 14

years ago. and i'm looking at her, like, are you really serious? >> but after so many years, would audrey be willing to face her attacker in court? >> i was horrified. i was very afraid because now i was going to see this person. ♪ na na na na na ♪ i woke up to a new day ♪ every little thing gonna go my way ♪ ♪ i woke up to a light bulb on ♪ every little thing is possible now ♪ [ female announcer ] we've added a touch of philadelphia cream cheese to our kraft natural shredded cheese so you can bring a creamier melt to any morning. ♪ life is amazing with the love that i've found ♪ ♪

with lively colombian. it's a morning breeze smooth as black silk. with folgers gourmet selections k-cup packs you can turn any day gourmet. new roasts, a new look... available where you buy groceries. [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it... in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. great taste. mmm... [ male announcer ] sounds good. it's amazing what soup can do.

how advanced is the new ford fusion? [ male announcer ] sounds good. well...it has outstanding pe rformance and handling... ...and it offers a plug-in hybrid that gets a projected 100 mpge. of course, there's still one thing it can't do. introducing the entirely new ford fusion. it's an entirely new idea of what a car can be. i worked a patrol unit for 17 years in the city of baltimore. when i first started experiencing the pain, it's hard to describe because you have a numbness but yet you have the pain like thousands of needles sticking in your foot. it was progressively getting worse, and at that point, i knew i had to do something. when i went back to my health care professional, that's when she suggested the lyrica.

once i started taking the lyrica, the pain started subsiding. [ male announcer ] it's known that diabetes damages nerves. lyrica is fda approved to treat diabetic nerve pain. lyrica is not for everyone. it may cause serious allergic reactions or suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worsening depression, or unusual changes in mood or behavior. or swelling, trouble breathing, rash, hives, blisters, changes in eye sight including blurry vision, muscle pain with fever, tired feeling, or skin sores from diabetes. common side effects are dizziness, sleepiness, weight gain, and swelling of hands, legs, and feet. don't drink alcohol while taking lyrica. don't drive or use machinery until you know how lyrica affects you. those who've had a drug or alcohol problem may be more likely to misuse lyrica. ask your doctor about lyrica today. it's specific treatment for diabetic nerve pain. to hear more of terry's story, visit lyrica.com.

welcome back. in the first part of kate snow's report tonight the full magnitude of the problem became clear. dna evidence from thousands of those sex ual assaults were sitting untested in a detroit warehouse, but could the evidence still lead to the

attackers and would victims be able to relive those horrible events after struggling for years to recover. here now, kate snow, continues her reporting. >> for 14 years audrey polk's rape kit sat untested on a dusty warehouse shelf, but now a prosecutor was on her doorstep with the news that her attacker had been found. >> and i'm looking at her, like, are you really serious? i said come right in. you're more than welcome to come in my house. the first thing she said, well, do you still want to pros duecu? i said certainly. absolutely. yes, i do. >> audrey hoped she would finally see justice done after all those years of living in fear, wondering if her assailant was still out there. >> there were times when i would be afraid. a lot of times i would have people come over and spend the night, hey, can you come spend the night? >> yid